City View ISD to close Monday due to illness

Another North Texas school district has succumbed to widespread illness, as City View Independent School District announced campuses will be closed Monday, Jan. 29.

"It just got to a point where we had 180 kids out today," said interim superintendent Brad Lewis Friday. "So we made the decision to close school for Monday."

The decision in City View came days after Vernon ISD closed, Wednesday and Thursday, after 22 percent of the students and faculty were not in school Tuesday. On that day, VISD Superintendent Jeff Byrd told the Times Record News, 30 percent of the students were either not in attendance or sent home sick.

"We fought it all week, but after we did the numbers, and the longer we waited, the worse it got," Lewis said.

City View campuses experienced similar conditions as Vernon, with about 32 percent of the student body out sick.

"It's the flu and flu-like symptoms," Lewis said. "We've had multiple students going home with fever, and we've also had the nausea. It just got to a point where we had 180 kids out today."

Lewis said that a weekend spent away from the school will not only give the students a chance to get better, but also a cleaning crew the opportunity to scrub the campuses thoroughly on Saturday.

"We'll have a professional cleaning company that specializes in this sort of thing," disinfecting buildings of possible infectious diseases, "to help us nip it in the bud," he said.

The decision came after a week of jumps and lulls in absences, Lewis said, when it seemed campuses may turn the corner, but Friday's spike prompted the closing.

"You never know collectively what's the best in the long run," he said. "We watched and waited, but it just, well, it metastasized and got much worse."

Classes will resume at regular time Tuesday morning.

"It's important to get that word out, too," Lewis said. "I think giving everybody the weekend to not be breathing on each other, we're taking every effort to get kids well so we can get them back in their chairs and start teaching again."